Eyebrows McGee is a young woman living in the emotional heartland of America: Peoria, that infamous bellwether constantly cited by the clueless culturati, as in, "But will it play in Peoria?" Eyebrows gives you a ground-level view of what's actually playing in Peoria.

Monday, April 16, 2007

Grey Cat, Sinuses, and Spring

Grey Cat is a pain in the butt come springtime. First of all, both cats operate under the delusion that dawn=food. This is fine in winter, but in summer, food=WHEN WE GET UP AND NO SOONER, GOT THAT, FELINES? I realize this is not entirely Grey Cat's fault, as cats are crepuscular, so for him food=sunrise and sunset, but it's still really irritating, particularly since Orange Cat just whines about it, but Grey Cat launches his 20 lbs. of CAT on top of your stomach to wake you up.

Grey Cat grows in a gigantic winter coat. Orange Cat gets fluffy, but Grey Cat gets SUPER GIGANTIC. He looks five pounds heavier. So come spring, as soon as the weather warms up even a little bit, Grey Cat blows his entire coat all at once, which means constant dusting and vacuuming and STILL finding cat hair in the most unlikely and icky places. Like my glass of wine. Ew.

But the two things that make him craziest in spring are birds and sinuses. When the birds come back, Grey Cat can hardly stand it. He wolfs down his breakfast as fast as possible so that he can GALLOP from window to window to stare at all the birds he would so seriously eat if I would just open that window for a second? Please? And then gallops back to a different window. Back and forth and all around, until he pukes up his entire undigested breakfast from too much running around chasing birds. Then I have to clean it up. Then he goes and stands by the food bowls and demands second breakfast because he puked up the first one and what kind of mean food-bringer won't feed him a second time???? There are birds involved here, woman!

Like me, Grey Cat appears to have tricky sinuses. Mr. McGee insists he's "my" cat whenever he gets sinusoidal. About four hours before a stormfront comes through, Grey Cat gets the galloping crazies and behaves like he is entirely possessed -- about the same time my sinuses start stabbing me in the brain with tiny little sinus-booger knives. In the spring, Orange Cat and Mr. McGee will be having a nice sit-and-read-and-purr on the couch, when suddenly Grey Cat begins galloping and behaving insane and biting everyone within reach, and I begin moaning and clutching my skull. It's a sure sign a front is on the way. And a sure sign that Orange Cat and Mr. McGee will eye me and Grey Cat with the contempt those with healthy sinuses reserve for those of us with weather-wise sinusoidal cavities.